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February 18, 2015 Revised, February 23, 2015 Professor and Director Sergio Aguilar-Gaxiola, Center for Reducing Health Disparities, School of Medicine Associate Professor Heidi Ballard, School of Education Professor and Director Nicole Biggart, Energy Efficiency Center, Graduate School of Management Assistant Vice Chancellor Marjorie Dickinson, Government and Community Relations Professor and Chair John Eadie, Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Professor Laura Grindstaff, Sociology, Division of Social Sciences Director Sharon Huntsman, UC Davis Extension Assistant Professor Alissa Kendall, Civil and Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering Director Marcie Kirk-Holland, Internship and Career Center Associate Professor and Director Jonathan London, Center for Regional Change, College of Agricultural and Environmental Studies Associate Professor Beth Rose Middleton, Native American Studies, Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies Professor and Director Leticia Saucedo, Clinical Legal Education King School of Law Professor and Associate Vice Provost Marc Schenker, School of Medicine, University Outreach Professor and Associate Dean Deborah Ward, Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing Senate Public Service Committee Representative (TBD) RE: Advisory Committee on Community-Engaged Scholarship Dear Colleagues: Our colleague, Dennis Pendleton, has accepted a short-term appointment as an advisor to me for the specific purpose of developing a strategic plan to advance community-engaged scholarship at UC Davis. We speak often and passionately about the service and outreach aspect of our tripartite mission as a University and, certainly, UC Davis distinguishes itself in many aspects of bringing the best of the University to bear on pressing regional, national, and global problems. What we lack, I believe, is a UC Davis-specific conception and strategy for community-engaged scholarship, a broad awareness of our many efforts and the overarching framework into which they fit, and a strategic plan for advancing this aspect of our mission. Such a plan would help us to prioritize and better support efforts to establish mutually beneficial community partnerships that address critically important social issues; to identify opportunities for enhancing the individual and collective scholarship of campus faculty; to create and strengthen working relationships with community decision makers; and to promote value-added initiatives that powerfully engage friends, associates and supporters of the campus. I have asked Dennis to draft a strategic plan for community-engaged scholarship that I will consider in consultation with the Academic Senate and other campus constituencies. The plan will assess the
Advisory Committee on Community-Engaged Scholarship February 23, 2015 Page 2 current state of community-engaged scholarship at UC Davis and present actionable recommendations and plans to enhance community engagement and outreach in the academic mission and strategic communications of the campus. In developing this draft, I have asked Dennis to •
Identify best practices in university engagement at several distinctive, highly-regarded, public research universities, inviting individual leaders in this space to consult with us.
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Confer with a diverse array of regional decision makers in both the public and private sectors—for example, non-profit organizations, financial institutions, and public agencies— regarding important issues that could be usefully addressed by the university’s reciprocal and mutually beneficial engagement with community partners.
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Engage UC Davis faculty and staff in an ad hoc advisory committee—a broadly representative group of faculty, administrators and academic staff that can contribute diverse perspectives on the assessment efforts of this proposal—to consider: 1) means of demonstrating the multiple values of university engagement in the academic mission and strategic communication of the university, and 2) ideas for incorporating the ethos of engaged scholarship in the institutional culture of UC Davis and the merit and promotion processes of the campus.
I am writing to invite you to serve on the campus advisory committee that will support Dennis’s work on this project. I anticipate that this group will meet several times between late February and early July to discuss topics you and Dennis will agree are essential to this work; interact with representatives from other institutions to share information and perspectives; and consider drafts of a strategic plan document. Thank you very much for considering participation in this important work. My office will work with you and Dennis to schedule meetings and staff your deliberations, as necessary. There is no need for you to respond to this letter unless you are unable to serve—in which case please send an email note to my executive assistant, Mary McLaughlin, at
[email protected]. Sincerely,
Ralph J. Hexter Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor c.
Chancellor Katehi Associate Chancellor Engelbach AEVC Loessberg-Zahl Faculty Assistant to the Chancellor and Provost Burtis Executive Advisor to the Provost Pendleton
